junjiitomangafandomcom-20200223-history
House of Friends
Also titled "Gang House" or "Club House". Chapter two from the tenth volume of the Horror World of Junji Ito collection, House of the Marionettes . Plot Yukari and her best friends Chikako and Minae decide to go to a neighborhood house that is reported to be haunted. Yukari is too scared to explore the house so the other two go inside without her. They discover a board that is blocking the stairway, but there is a hole in it. Minae climbs through and goes up to the second floor while Chikako stays on the first floor. They reunite outside, Minae having escaped through a stairway at the back. She reports that she saw bloodstains all over the walls and ceiling. Shortly afterwards, Chikako and Minae stop being friends and refuse to talk to each other. Yukari tries to ask Chikako about it but Chikako won't listen. She says that she has found a new group of mature, intelligent friends who are college students. Yukari agrees to visit Chikako's new friends at their "gang house", but it turns out to be the haunted house they had visited with Minae. When Yukari doesn't want to go inside, Chikako screams at her. Yukari is disturbed by the changes in Chikako's behavior and her wanting to hang out with much older people. Yukari is introduced to Chikako's new group of friends. They maintain an almost military-like order with one member of the group always addressed as "Leader." They begin an intense discussion about political issues. When they notice that Yukari isn't joining in, they become enraged with her and accuse her of being a spy for the second floor. They threaten to "teach her a lesson". She breaks free from them and runs away. When Yukari tells her father where she went, he orders her not to go back to the house. He explains that it used to be a hideout for student radicals, who eventually split into two factions, each on a separate floor. The two groups violently hated each other and used a board between the stairs to keep themselves apart. Eventually, due to suspicions of "spies" there was a shoot-out and everyone who used the house was killed. The house has been left empty ever since. Yukari tells Minae her theory that Chikako is being possessed by the ghosts of the dead students. Minae says that she knows a spirit medium who can exorcise Chikako. She takes Yukari over to the house where the medium lives, and they go up to the second floor via a back stairway. Yukari discovers that she has been tricked and it is the haunted house. There is no medium, and Minae is possessed like Chikako, but by the ghosts from the second floor. Yukari tries to escape but falls down the stairs and her head breaks through the board, which the ghosts had recently repaired. She is now trapped with her head through to the first floor and her body in the territory of the second floor. Chikako appears with the ghosts from the first floor, ignoring Yukari's cries to help her. Both sets of ghosts discuss what to do with Yukari since she is now suspended between them and thus "neutral." They each decide to try pulling her free so they can claim her for their own side. The ghosts begin a tug of war over her. Chikako and Minae stand by in a trance, Yukari pleading with them to save her as the ghosts wrench her apart. Category:house of the marionettes Category:one-shot